Village Parenting: A Playworker’s Perspective
Village parenting is not the domain of parents alone. Playworkers, educators, mentors, coaches, aunties, uncles, grandparents, friends’ parents and even animals can be village parents too. It’s a collective, intuitive process whereby everyone’s needs get met, and everyone gets to thrive.
Firstly, I would like to introduce myself (if we haven’t already met in the forest).
My name is Ellen and I’ve had the absolute privilege of being a playworker at Wildlings for the last four and a half years. I’ve seen many children and families gather in our Basecamp log circle, and I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing an incredible amount of growth and development in these wild families along the way. Not only that, but I’ve been writing blog posts for Wildlings for just over two years now, as well as creating content for our social media channels.
It’s allowed me to distill my personal experiences from the forest into meaningful content that I hope has helped to inspire, reassure, and educate the community on the benefits of nature play and guide more families back into the wild with their children. I’m about to embark on my next adventure, so I’m saying goodbye to Grandma Fig and my fabulous team as I head off to serve new families in new places. Before I go, I wanted to take this moment to share my thoughts and feelings with you about the value of these experiences one last time.
So prepare yourselves for some rambling, because this is not a TLDR blog post that can be summed up in five easy bullet points.
Gratitude
One of my favourite parts of the day at Wildlings is our gratitude circle. It’s how we end all of our programs, at least on the Sunshine Coast, and it’s such a nice way to check in with the kids and parents and hear what they loved about their day and what’s bringing them joy. As we gathered with our kindy group under the gazebo in the mud and rain, one Mum shared that she was grateful for village parenting. She was referring to the support of having extra people around to help her with the big and little things as she tried her best to facilitate a happy, nourishing experience for her two young children.
It takes a village
The term village parenting struck a chord with me. I’ve never heard it expressed this way before, and I thought it was a great way to describe the dynamic of our term programs, particularly for our little Wildlings at Forest kindy. We all know the saying “it takes a village” – and we’re all acutely aware of how we suffer from a lack of community support in our daily lives.
Parents feel this deeply as they juggle competing priorities, whether that be spending quality time with their children, fulfilling financial and work obligations, health concerns and personal wellbeing, maintaining a home or staying connected to extended family and friends. I’ve sat with more than one exhausted new mumma wondering, how am I so isolated? How am I meant to do all this on my own?
The answer is of course that we were never meant to. And yet here we are.
And can I just take a moment to say – you’re all doing an amazing job. Please take this moment to give yourselves a huge pat on the back, unclench your jaw, drop your shoulders and exhale. If you’re reading this, you’re already going the extra mile to support your young family to thrive, and sometimes it’s the simplest intention of wanting to do better that already means you’re an incredible parent. There will always be more that you can do, so hear me when I say – you are enough. You care, you’re trying, you are enough. Repeat it with me now – I am enough. Great work!
The Wildlings Way
Wildlings Forest School is the brainchild of two incredible women who have been in the exact position you’re in now. Thankfully, they had the inspired idea of creating a space to meet this need, and the perseverance to overcome every obstacle and every strip of red tape to bring their nature play baby into the world. Wildlings is no magic cure; unfortunately, we don’t have an unlimited supply of well-rested pseudo-parents walking around, ready to relieve you of every responsibility so you can finally get a moment to yourself. (How nice would that be?!)
Sadly, the solution to our current predicament is slower and more complex than that. But perhaps a quick fix would also rob us of the opportunity to grow into this situation and be transformed by it. (Gosh Ellen, you really got my hopes up there!)
Growth
Growing is exactly what we must do, and what better place to do this than in nature. Mother Earth is our first parent, our original community, and our forever family. The plant, animal, fungal and mineral relationships that we see in nature can be incredible teachers for guiding us back to the village. What if we saw them as role models, here to show us how to turn decay into new life and sustenance?
But I’m tired, you say. I’m already at capacity. How am I supposed to create solutions to systemic problems and pro-actively support an anti-capitalist agenda?!
I can hear the desperate edge in your voice and feel the fatigue in your bones. Come, let’s sit by the creek together. Let’s listen to the soothing sounds of water flowing over rocks and fallen logs. Let’s watch the enchanted dance of raindrops sparkling like starlight on the creek’s surface. Let’s unfurl from the square thinking and square spaces of modern life, and come into the roundness and openness of forests and beaches.
Come, rest your back against this tree, and feel the compassion and support of trees who have been growing for as many years as you have, and feel the wisdom of those who have been here much longer than you. If we listen, perhaps they will tell us stories of how this creek has flooded and dried up to a trickle, of the plants that have been uprooted and the baby animals that have been born here. I know you are tired, but right here, you don’t need to be anything other than what you are.
Let Mother hold you for a moment. Just this. Just now.
Nature is medicine
Without even opening your window, can you feel how your state of being has shifted? Why? Because nature is healing. It’s as simple as that. I could reference more than a dozen, probably hundreds of research articles all concluding the same thing. Nature is medicine. And she’s exactly the flavour of medicine we need right now. Parents and non-parents, young and old, nature-lovers and city-dwellers, men, women, non-binary, trans, coriander-lovers and coriander-haters. Everyone. We all need nature.
Especially children. Children need nature like they need oxygen to breathe.
Children cannot learn and grow and thrive if they’re in a state of stress. Just as we felt ourselves down-regulate our nervous systems by just imagining ourselves sitting by the creek, nature provides a space where children can find equilibrium in whatever way they need. Got energy to burn? She’s got mud slides, trees to climb, sticks to break, rocks to throw, water to splash in. Needing calm? Take your pick of sit spots, a mossy log or lying under a tall tree, watching the leaves sway in the breeze. Cool water flowing over your bare feet, or mud squelching between your toes. Gazing at the intricate patterns of scribbly gum bark, or marvelling at the folds and wrinkles of fungi. Nature has something for everyone.
Our non-human family
When these natural elements come together in family and kinship groups, we find wild spaces that are perfect for holding wild humans. We are first and foremost animals, and the great outdoors is our natural habitat. While our minds sometimes have to do the work to remember this, our bodies have had millennia to evolve in nature.
Being outside is intuitive, it’s something we feel. Our instincts come alive, and our bodies remember the many lessons our ancestors learned about how to live in harmony with the natural world.
Intuition is key
Intuitive, self-directed play is a huge part of what we do at Wildlings. Outside, it’s not a big deal if some kids want to be loud and boisterous and others want to be calm and creative. They can also shift gears in a moment because there’s no set agenda. Our programs are not outcome-based, instead we focus on the quality of the children’s experiences and support them to tune into themselves, their imagination, their innate curiosity, and how their bodies feel in space.
Our playworkers move intuitively through these spaces, allowing themselves to be a resource for children, a voice of encouragement or caution as needed, and a witness to their adventures and discoveries. Working with children in this way has been my greatest joy, and it’s made a huge impact on me personally and how I view myself in relation to the village.
Village Parenting
Coming back full circle, intuition is a key part of village parenting. And I want to clarify here that village parenting is not the domain of parents alone. Playworkers, educators, mentors, coaches, aunties, uncles, grandparents, friends’ parents and even animals can be village parents too. It’s a collective, intuitive process whereby everyone’s needs get met, and everyone gets to thrive. As a playworker, I have a deep need to be of service, I crave meaningful work and aspire to have a positive impact on the children and families I connect with. As parents, you crave support and a space where you can share the load, whether that be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. Our children crave pretty much everything everywhere all at once!
But mostly, they need love. They need safety. They need connection. And it starts here, in nature. Just as all life sprouts from the primal ingredients of sunshine, water, fresh air, earth and nurturing relationships, our journeys are all nourished by Mother Nature’s gifts.
An expanded network
While coordinated teamwork goes a long way, intuitive care is a huge part of the magic that takes place at forest school. When our basic needs are met, we get to look out for each other. Stepping into nature is getting our needs met, so when we do it together, we all have an expanded capacity to care for our community. Children have a much wider circle of people to ask questions, to learn from, to laugh with, to play with. Parents have a much wider circle of people to watch over their children, to share their knowledge and foster their confidence, both for themselves and their little wildlings. Playworkers are merely the facilitators of this exchange, and in some ways, we have succeeded when we are no longer needed.
Small things are big things
But today, I felt the hugeness of being a playworker. The screen is blurring because my eyes are welling with tears. What I finally understood today is that my greatest gift as a playworker is the quality of my presence. These wild families have become my friends, my community.
I am part of a patchwork of people who are relearning how to create the village we so desperately crave.
These days in the forest are the weft and weave of singing ourselves back home, back together, back to our roots. Families need a web of relationships around them to thrive. Just as any single organism exists in a co-dependent relationship with its ecosystem, we too need to find those pathways of exchange where everyone gets their needs met. Forest school is one such place where we get to feel what that feels like.
”The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.” - Helen Keller
As familiar faces came to wish me farewell, the beautiful words they shared with me were not about specific bushcraft skills or knowledge. They told me stories of how small moments of presence have had ripple effects in their lives. The cumulative effect of spending weekly time with their children in the creek, and how they’ve blossomed into quiet confidence. How they couldn’t speak up in front of the group before, and now they aren’t afraid for their voices to be heard. How parents have benefited from teachable moments, like how much a mother appreciated when I reframed a children’s demands to helping them see that their family is a team, and they need to work together to look after each other. How they felt encouraged on their alternative education journey by having someone witness them without judgment, and reassure them that it’s ok to take it slow and chart their own course.
Spending time with my head in books and research trying to bring credibility to the benefits of nature play has given me an unwavering conviction that one of the very best things we can do for our children is just give them permission to run wild outside. And sometimes, the calmness and certainty of this belief has been a balm for tired parents when their faith in themselves has been tested.
The gift of presence
All this to say, presence goes a long way. Just showing up, collectively, with a desire to love and support our young ones, means we’re all on the same page. So, guys, we get to do this together. Yes, it can be hard sometimes. But we have the opportunity to rebirth the village together, and what a beautiful gift that is. Village parenting means we also get to be parented, no one gets left behind. As much as I identify as a fairy, I can’t wave my magic wand and make all the pain and suffering and loneliness and struggle go away.
But perhaps I can sing you a song about a kookaburra, tell you a story about Enrique the eel who lives in the creek, or help you craft a primitive weapon to remind you of your own strength. Let me be the one to tell you – you are the hero of this story. Yes, you. This is not a sales pitch to come to Wildlings (although, if you feel compelled to join us, please do!). This is a story of someone who realised that changing the world is as simple and as magical as being present – with each other, with our children, with nature.
A bigger vision
Village parenting is a vision that is bigger than any one place, than any one team. As I spoke with my fellow playworkers about how things will look like moving forward, I know for certain that the faces may change, but the intention of collaboratively caring for one another has an energy all of its own. Mother Earth wants this to happen, the forest thrives when we gather with our young ones. I believe part of what makes our Sunshine Coast site so magical is that the space is imbued with reverence from years of gathering in joy.
How much love and support has circulated through this grove? It’s immeasurable. That leaves an imprint. The trees know their mission. They shelter us, so we can shelter you, so you can shelter your little ones, so they can light up their world with their magic.
Written by Ellen Nesbitt. Ellen is a nature play advocate and creative writer with a passion for helping families connect with the outdoors. She is dedicated to exploring ways to nurture children's creativity, independence, wellbeing and love for nature.